Dan Colgan

UI / UX Designer

I consider myself a user interface designer and a social and cognitive scientist who uses empathy based design to create products that empower users. I have strong creative AND technical skills. I approach my design process with both humility and curiosity and I glean as much data as I can before making any decisions. I notice how people interact with the world around them and am keenly aware of user motivations and desires because of this. My holistic approach is one that asks the right questions for the right reasons to yield accurate results. I ask “what issues might a user experience and how can I solve those problems?” I’m interested in following a humbling iterative process that takes into account user personas to solve problems in the most efficient way possible. I believe that you don’t know what you don’t know and there’s no such thing as asking stupid questions.

Anyone making decisions without understanding the user first would have a very difficult time in solving the problems at hand in an efficient and meaningful way. What is unique about me is that I have the ability to traverse the brain hemispheres to see the perspective from both an automoton’s viewpoint as well as an empathic viewpoint. I merge the best of design, business and technology in one interface and am capable of defining and prioritizing information in an efficient manner. I consider business goals, information architecture, content development, wire framing, prototyping, all the way through testing, design iteration and the many levels there-after. Content ALWAYS comes first. My job is to structure the most effective experience for what needs to be communicated in a beautiful way.

The cognitive scientist Don Norman put it best, I aim to “encompass all aspects of the end-user’s interaction with the company, its services, and its products.”

Work Experience

Digital Designer & Photographer

I've spent an extensive amount of time outdoors traveling the U.S., taking original photographs and professionally editing them. I just returned from a two month long adventure covering the western half of the U.S. I visited over a dozen National Parks in celebration of the centennial.

My mission is to give people a glimpse of life outside their four walls, inspiring wanderlust, exploration, imagination and adventure while reminding people of the beauty that exists out there. Part environmentalist, part adventurer, part designer. I am primarily interested in working with outdoor brands, designing and photographing outdoor products in beautiful natural settings.

Senior UX / UI Designer

Bounder is an iOS concierge application that allows hotel guests access to both in-room amenities, as well as local catered data for events and activities at the touch of a button. Bounder provides a dashboard to track hotel guest metrics and incorporates targeted demographics to better advertise to target markets. My responsibilities include user interface and user experience design for the application and Bounder website. I create wireframes, prototypes, user journeys, development style guides, mockups, and user interface designs.

Senior UX / UI Designer

I worked in the Web & Mobile Applications Engineering department with a team of full-stack developers and iOS mobile app developers using a scrum framework via JIRA.

My UX/UI design responsibilities included the design of the following applications; the Field Sales Reporting application, the Manager Sales Reporting application, the Price Books application, and the Error Reporting application, which is an internal app for developers to track application errors in the testing phase.

I was also responsible for the UX/UI design of cpsagu.com, agrium.com, CPS Central (a Drupal employee intranet), the Service Now Catalog (a help desk services platform), and the Insight Website. I also created and maintained the iOS Mobile & Desktop Style Guides to establish consistent styles across multiple developer teams.

Art Director & UI Designer

As a UX / UI Designer for Avocet, it was my responsibility to expand digital brand influence for each client by using a variety of channels including Email, SEO, SEM, Content Curation, Strategic Creative, Social Media, Mobile & Desktop UX / UI, Print, Corporate Identity and Web Design.

I conducted QA and A/B user testing while tracking metrics via Google Analytics. It was also my responsibility to create style guides, moodboards, personas, user flow charts/journeys, site maps, mockups, and prototypes for our client’s websites and applications. I successfully set up and managed a project management application which resulted in solving many problems for the company by creating efficiencies in the workflow and tracking timeline/SOW deadlines, thus improving internal communication and development costs. After the company moved to a new location downtown, I designed www.avocetcommunications.com to reflect our new brand which tied in to our new office atmosphere.

Contract UX / UI Designer

I was responsible for creating and establishing user experience design elements, site rebranding initiatives, structured site maps and wireframes, style guides, transactional emails and internal pre-launch testing throughout the rebrand of the site. Magento and Wordpress CMS were used alongside Basecamp for project management.

Contract Production Designer

While at Beam Global, Inc. - Internal Ad Agency PROOF - project time management and communication skills were essential in working with senior management and the Production team to produce point of sale and promotional marketing materials for over 40 brands under the Jim Beam Spirits & Wine company name. Responsibilities included photo retouching, keylines, layout, and pre-press checks for FTP server upload.

Contract Designer, Web & PPT

I had the task of designing the print materials for the APICS annual conference in Las Vegas, NV. The 40+ page attendee booklet was designed with wayfinding icons, infographics, schedules and maps. Corporate brand guidelines were maintained while creating weekly powerpoint presentations, web-based display ads, animated banner icons and buttons for the website.

Lead Designer

Design responsibilities as the lead designer included commercial print materials for corporate clients and small businesses. Managed client and print vendor relations. Resolved Mac IT issues and improved digital capabilities including server organization and file backup systems. Collaborated with local print vendors to design and brand high security payroll checks and money orders for ADP, PLS and other Chicago Currency Exchanges. Supervised the production of art work and press checks during proprietary security printing of payroll and money order checks with up to 18 security layers, including abrasion and blacklight verification technology. PLS money orders - Zero counterfeiting fraud with over 10,000,000 issued.